‘Look at some of the crime reports taken in the last few days. Dezzy Westerbrook. Don’t know if you know him. Crowley lad with form for street robbery … three nights ago, someone gave him a kicking outside the Jack of Diamonds pub. The assailant was identified, arrested and charged as Michael Havering. A part-time bouncer, but nothing to do with the Jack of Diamonds. He admitted the assault but wouldn’t say what it was about. There’s another one. Archie McCrae.’

‘Scots Archie?’ Tucker sounded surprised. ‘Is he still fencing?’

‘Maybe not for much longer,’ she said. ‘There was an aggravated burglary at his flat. Place got wrecked, he got a pasting … then they tied him up and poured petrol over him. Only reason he didn’t burn, we think, is because the old lady next door called 999 and a divisional van was in the area. Very little was stolen, but he told the uniforms that he didn’t know who did it. Later on, neighbours gave descriptions matching Ali Yalfani and Mehdi Amani.’

‘We know those two,’ Tucker said. ‘Right pair of shitheads.’

‘Yeah, but it’s complicated. Archie insisted it wasn’t them.’

Tucker frowned. ‘Okay … but, I’m not seeing the link.’

Lucy realised that she wasn’t explaining this very well, and that maybe, if he was busy – as the Squad undoubtedly were – he was tolerating her presence rather than welcoming it.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘none of these suspected assailants are attached to the Crew the way Leon Royton is, but don’t you think this is all a bit suspicious? Known tea-leaves, usually blaggers – or people who work with blaggers – getting a going-over. And then it’s always the same thing. They claim they don’t know what the cause of the incident was, or they say it was a fallout in a pub or a snooker room, or whatever. This is not your regular kind of crime wave.’

His expression remained blank, which irked her.

‘Danny, come on … maybe the Crew have put a reward out? I mean for Northwood’s killers.’

Gaskin chuckled at his desk. ‘Newsflash. Pissed-off gangsters want revenge.’

Lucy tried to ignore him. ‘Isn’t that relevant?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be surprising,’ Tucker said.

‘Yeah, but this is real crazy stuff. I mean, an awful lot more people are gonna get hurt if it goes on unchecked. Plus, when they do find the culprits, they’re not going to hand them over to the Robbery Squad, are they?’

‘Are we supposed to be bothered?’ Gaskin chipped in.

She shot him a vicious stare, to which his only response, again, was to chuckle.